Times have got harder for the online gambling industry in Russia as Rambler, the No.2 search engine has decided to stop accepting PPC advertising for the gambling/poker sector. Earlier this year I reported on the new law introduced to restrict advertising for the sector. Although this law was a little ambiguous when it came to online gambling the market leader Yandex decided to halt their advertising immediately. Now Rambler, with 20% market share has followed suite.
With Google in third position that has stopped the easy days of PPC marketing for the industry. They will now have to follow more of the covert techniques adopted in the West to gain new players.
PPC advertising is still available through Begun.ru, in their associated sites and other private networks but the loss of the three market leaders will put renewed pressure on them to adopt the same stance.
Is this the end of the line? Extremely unlikely, as the industry always seems to find new and creative ways to market themselves but it has certainly sent ripples through gaming circles in Russia.
Nick Wilsdon
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Great post Nick! What categories other than gambling are refused advertising? Is it just PPC and not banners, etc. Will the operators just move everything offshore? It certainly raises a lot of question. Keep us posted.
True mkozloff, I missed out the Begun connection. However it does seem that Rambler is now refusing gambling/poker ads sent to them from the Begun system.
There are still some on there, but the official line is that they are checking them now and stopping any they find (on the phone to me on Monday). Not great news. Strangely enough though after the initial freefall in clicks we have started to notice the numbers pick up on the Begun system, they maybe trying to counter balance this…
>thanks for coverage of Russian SE market, Nick. 🙂
No problem, I enjoy the market over here. Runet is a very exciting place to be right now 😉
Thanks for coverage of Russian SE market, Nick. 🙂
Just one little correction: Rambler doesn’t have own PPC system for contextual advertising. They sell paid listing by shows. So Rambler has PPT contextual advertising, not PPC.
But you can show your advertising on Rambler via Begun. And now you can see casino advert (for example try “онлайн-казино”, “онлайн-покер”, etc.)